USA > California > Los Angeles County > Pasadena > History of Pasadena, comprising an account of the native Indian, the early Spanish, the Mexican, the American, the colony, and the incorporated city, occupancies of the Rancho San Pasqual, and its adjacent mountains, canyons, waterfalls and other objects of interest: being a complete and comprehensive histo-cyclopedia of all matters pertaining to this region > Part 20
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he, 'didn't I fix it nice for you in there? Don't those covers keep the sun off of you and make it cool and comfortable ? Wouldn't you like a fan, now, and some ice cream (with sarcasm) ? If you don't see what you want, ask for it. I'm not the man to be backward in the matter of hospi- tality.' And then language failed him and he gave it up."
THE PREACHER AND WILSON'S WINE.
John W. Wilson relates the following "old settler " incident. Some time in the Sixties a clergyman from the East was spending a season at Los Angeles ; and being strongly " American " in his sentiments, he thought it a good idea to introduce East the pure California native American wines for sacramental purposes, instead of the imported French, Spanish or Italian brands usually obtained for that purpose. Accordingly he hired a horse and buggy and drove out to B. D. Wilson's Lake Vineyard home-place, which had the only large winery then in this section, to sample the wines, ". " purely for sacramental purposes." He introduced himself and made known his errand to Mr. Wilson, who invited him to stay for dinner. He took the man into the house to wait, while he himself went to give his workmen some directions. When dinner was ready the stranger was seated at table as a guest of the family ; and Mr. Wilson opening a bottle of wine poured out a glass for the visitor first, which he gulped down at once; then after it had passed around the table, Wilson set the bottle down near the man. He took it up, filled his own glass again and drank it off greedily, smacking his lips, and remarked with an air of self-importance, "I like that, Mr. Wilson ; I like that ! "
" You do, eh ?" said Wilson, with a twinkle in his eye.
"Yes, really, I like that! It's a good article, Mr. Wilson ! a good article ! "
" Well, you stay with it, and it'll play hell with you before long," came the quick response-Wilson having entirely forgotten that his guest was a preacher.
STAGE TALENT IN THE COLONY.
The Daily Star of May 24, 1889, reports a sketch of a little casual gossip between two or three " old settlers " which the reporter heard one day in a private office ; and it contains some historic reminiscences of Pasadena's teething period which are worth preserving :
"Speaking of social matters," remarked the first gentleman, "I remem- ber how readily we all mixed in those early days ; there were no cliques, but all joined in getting up entertainments and having a good time, and the whole colony went. After the school-house was established on the square - the first school-house, that now does duty as a dwelling on Adella Avenue-we used to meet there for everything, whether it was a minstrel show, a play, a dance, or a church entertainment ; and what jolly times we had ! "
" Yes," chimed in another old timer, " I remember the first perform- ance of a dramatic kind we had there."
" Let's see; I can give you the characters from memory ; there were Miss Ella Gilmore (afterwards Mrs. C. S. Martin), Miss Annie Swan (now Mrs. Wm. Martin), Chas. Bell, Will. Martin, Seymour Locke, Will. Swan, Miss Annie Clapp, Miss Wallace (now Mrs. Croft), and George Clapp.
IO
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They were members of our literary club, and the drama did not exhaust their intellectual repertoire by any means."*
" Yes, and there was our minstrel troupe," remarked the first speaker. " The Pasadena minstrels were known throughout the county. There was Col. Banbury, now the worthy money-bags of the county. He did not dis- dain to play the flute in said orchestra, no more than the proprietor of the Acme, J. H. Baker, stood on his dignity in the matter of twanging the tuneful guitar. Then there was Judge Eaton. One wouldn't think he, too, could blow witching strains from the flute, but in those days he used to do it with the greatest eclat and all that sort of thing possible. C. P. Brown played the viola, and a violinist from Alhambra, whose name I have for- gotten [John Burns], gave us first-rate music on the violin. Whatever reputation Charlie Bell enjoys as a singer and character delineator he mostly gained as 'end man' in the company of distinguished artists who were wont to delight the entire population of Pasadena in the old school-house. Local gags and songs were generally entrusted to him, and I happen to remember a verse or two of one of the latter that he got off to a rollicking plantation tune in commemoration of a certain hunting episode. It doesn't read very smoothly in cold-blooded print, but as a song with chorus it used to bring down the house. It ran about this way :
" Have you seen our rifle teatı ! Have you seen them shooting ! Markham and Watts make very good shots, But Gilchrist he makes nothing."
CHORUS. " Then Baker went to the mountain side, And when he got there- ' Hush ! hush ! tell no one else, And I will kill that bear.' "
BAKER'S BEAR.
Many of the colonists had such a keen relish for fun that they were much given to turning jokes upon one another. One time it was reported that bears were making nightly visits to a bee ranch up near the mountains. Now, to shoot a bear was the crowning ambition of every man who could hit a barn door at forty paces ; so here was a chance to go on a night hunt, loaded for bear, and a company of three or four was soon made up, with J. H. Baker as one of them. They found shelter in a little cabin near the bee hives and lay down to rest until Mr. Bear should begin to disturb a hive, or they should hear his sniffs and footsteps. The rest of the boys had got an idea that Baker was braver in talk than he would be in action, and they planned to have a little fin on that line. So after waiting quietly for some time, and all were apparently dropping into a doze, there was a noise outside, as the boys had planned, and Baker raised up, moving and stepping as softly as a cat, and said in a muffled whisper, "H'sh ! h'sh ! I'll kill the bear !"
*Other performers in dramatic and minstrel entertainments not named in this list were : F. M. Lippincott, A. L. Carr, W. L. Keith, Jerome Beebe, Geo. and Fred Mnehler, F. H. Heidenreich, C. Swan, W. O. Swan, Jr., and H. Jones. Miss Velma Brown (now Mrs. W. B. Clapp) was the " Jenny Lind " of those days, and one of her popular songs was " What do birdies dream of? "
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No bear appeared that night, and the hunters returned without their game. But they told the story of Baker's cautious "H'sh ! h'sh ! I'll kill the bear !" and from that time it became a local by-word, applied in all 1 sorts of jocular ways-some of the old settlers using it even yet occasionally as an illustrative figure of speech. And this is the incident referred to in the chorus of Charlie Bell's negro minstrel song quoted above.
THE N. N. N. 'S.
These cabalistic letters being interpreted meant "Nine Nobby Nig- gers," which was the title of the minstrel troupe formed by the colony boys, just for the fun of it, in 1875-76, some months before Charlie Bell's arrival in 1877. The original N. N. N.'s were : Clarence Martin, Will Martin, Mercer Moody, Will Moody, Arthur Day, Mr. Breand, Fred Muehler, Sey- mour Locke, Fred Lippincott. This feature and resource of colony fun was kept up for several years, and others took part in it from time to time ; but it was always the " N. N. N.'s" or the minstrel troupe. It is related that even Judge Eaton, Col. Banbury, J. H. Baker, and C. P. Brown occasion- ally helped the boys out by adding their special skill with instrumental music.
"WHO KILLED JESSE LEE?"
This burlesque murder trial occurred in the old original school-house on lower Orange Grove Avenue (where Mrs. Sarah Ware now resides) be- fore its removal up to Fair Oaks and Colorado, and was a "put-up-job," as the boys say-really the most striking piece of grim drollery that occurred in all the colony annals of fun-making. It was a local farce, well contrived, and enacted with excellent dramatic skill. A youth named Jesse Lee was supposed to have been murdered by Mart. Weight ; and he was arrested for this breach of civil order by Frank Lowe, acting as sheriff, with Seymour Locke as deputy. B. S. Eaton sat as judge; P. M. Green appeared as at- torney for the State, and Dr. O. H. Conger as attorney for the accused. The jury was Dr. T. B. Elliott, foreman ; A. O. Porter, John Lowe, Will Martin (other naines not learned). The principal witness was young Mor- ton Banbury, who had found in the Arroyo the skull of some animal. This he produced in court from a bag, and identified it as the skull of Jesse Lee. Dr. J. C. Newton was called as a medical expert ; and he came with wig and gown and solemn face, using a long section or tube of sheet-iron water pipe for a microscope to examine the skull, and determine by the molecular structure of its ultimate particles whether it was veritably bone of man or beast, that question having been vigorously raised by Dr. Conger, the attor- ney for the defense. Young Clarence Martin was also dressed with wig and spectacles, and some foreign-looking garments, and was introduced as the eminent savant, Dr. Brown-Sequard. He was sworn as a medical ex- pert, too, and gave a learned disquisition on "the polariscopistic intussuscep-
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titude of all anthropomorphous sanguineous fluids ; wherefore their inflam- matory or semi-tropical exoticity, with non-irrigability in the citrus belt, might depolarize the red corpuscles and become the protoplasmic injectiver- ator of bloody deeds like this " ; etc., etc.
That may not be the exact language, but it is the substance and style of it. The circumstantial evidence seemed to be winding up tightly about the prisoner at the bar. Dr. Conger made a strong plea for the defense. Then P. M. Green, in closing his argument for the State, exclaimed in eloquent diction : "As a star falls from heaven and is seen no more, so fell Jesse Lee !" (And after that he was sent to the legislature.)
The jury reported through their foreman, Dr. Elliott, that they could not hang the culprit on the evidence, but he ought to be hung anyway, on general principles, and they gave a verdict accordingly. The prisoner was pronounced "guilty." The sheriff had his noose and black cap ready, and was about to proceed with the hanging. But now Jesse Lee came bounding into court-declared that that wasn't his skull at all; that his blood cor- puscles were all right ; his citrus belt was perfectly well irrigated ; and there was no bloody deed for all this fuss; etc., etc. So the case was dismissed, and the court adjourned.
The part of Jesse Lee was played by Perry Kewen, son of Col. E. J. C. Kewen, who then lived in the historic old stone mill, below the foot of Lake Avenue, which he had fixed up at great cost for a dwelling. Mrs. Kewen was also present. This burlesque trial was the most notable and longest remembered of the many entertainments given by the colony's original "literary society," except perhaps the reading of their first paper, The Reservoir No. I, in which occurred the famous "dog poetry."
COLONEL BANBURY'S DEER.
The story they tell on the Colonel is this. One day word was brought in that there was a deer browsing in the chapparal up toward the mount- ains. Colonel Banbury made up a party to go in pursuit, and with his trusty rifle in hand and seated in a wagon he took the lead. In due time they reached the place, and sure enough a deer was there ; the Colonel saw it and jumped up and shouted, "There it goes !" but entirely forgot his gun and didn't shoot at all. So this incident became a standing joke on the "' Pasadena Rifle Team."
THE "RIFLE TEAM" SAW A BEAR.
Another of the colony bear stories is thus related. It was learned that bears were nightly stealing honey from the bee ranches up near the mount- ains and a party was gathered to go up there and bring down some bear steak for breakfast. Uncle David Townsend and Charley Watts were of the party, besides others not learned. They reached a bee ranch cabin after dark and climbed onto its roof to lie in wait and watch for bruin's arrival.
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In due time a great shaggy grizzly came, and went to turning over the hives and feasting himself on the honey. When our donghty hunters saw his formidable size they wilted - kept as still as mice, watched him rob the hives, and let him depart without their ever firing a gun. The fact was, that if they shot the bear and did not succeed in killing him at once but only wounded him, the chances were that he would tear and claw the shanty down and kill or mangle every man of them. But the jokers (those who had never faced a wild bear themselves) would have their fun about the "rifle team " watching a bear while he robbed a bee ranch, and not daring to fire a shot at him. It was said facetiously, they didn't want to hurt the bear ; they only wanted to see the bear and bee circus, which beat anything Barnum ever got up.
See article on the Mount Lowe Railway, chapter 23, for another "bear story " told by Governor Markham on the "Rifle Team," with himself in the stampede.
RABBIT HUNTS.
In 1876-77-78, rabbit hunts were among the sporting events of the colony, in which W. O. Swan, Joseph Wallace, Al. Carr, Charley Watts, Charlie Bell, Will Clapp, Whit. Elliott, and others are mentioned as partic- ipants, with Arturo Bandini as chief director. A sketch in the Star of May 29, 1889, speaks thus of this matter :
" As to hunting," exclaimed another veteran, " I wish you could have enjoyed some of our rabbit coursing. There was no such organization then as the ' Valley Hunt,' but every man kept a hound or other dog, and when our meets occurred, you would see crowds of Los Angeles people on hand to enjoy the sport. We used to assemble at the twin oaks west of Romayne Williams's present home [Hill Avenue north of Mountain street], and the whole country was then open to us.
" Fifteen rabbits a day was no uncommon catch ; and we used to stim- ulate the hunters, not by offering such trifling prizes as the animal's tail or a wreath, but something useful, as well as ornamental. For instance, Charley Watts once carried off in triumph a set of harness won as a trophy of his hound's fleetness. Things were run on a substantial basis in those days. Colonel Winston and Arturo Bandini led the heavy hunting squad by bagging the large game - wild cats, foxes, coyotes, bear, etc."
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CHAPTER VIII.
HORRORS .- Notable Crimes, Calamities, Accidents, Storms, Floods, etc., within Pasadenaland.
VASQUEZ, THE ROBBER.
The first thing to record for Pasadena under this head is the visit here of Tiburcio Vasquez, one of the most noted bandits of California history. In April, 1874, the colony men were hard at work getting their water pipe laid from Devil's Gate down to the Orange Grove reservoir, having con- tracted with Miles & Holbrook of Los Angeles to furnish a supply of It-inch iron pipe for the purpose, while Judge Eaton took charge of the spring-heads, the sand-box and the pipe-lining and ditching part of the work. Just after dinner on April 16th Mr. Miles and his teamster George Osborne were returning down the Arroyo bottom road to Los Angeles, after deliver- ing a load of pipe to Judge Eaton's workmen up toward Devil's Gate ; and when they had got down in the vicinity of Sheep Corral springs where the old road began to wind through the oak park by a steep grade up to Orange Grove Avenue (just below Wm. S. Hanaford's place-1894), they were met by Vasquez and four of his gang, all well mounted, and all armed with rifles, pistols and knives, in the most approved and ferocious style of their craft. The men in the wagon were required to halt and throw up their hands; then to deliver their money. Osborne had none, and Miles had only a little loose change-less than a dollar ; so Vasquez said very politely, " Then, if you please, sir, I will take that watch." Miles hesitated, or pre- tended he had none. Vasquez cocked his Winchester rifle, saying, “ No foolishness ! I can't parley with you. Billy Workman's only a few rods down the road after me !" And he began to draw a bead on Miles, who then handed over his watch. [This he recovered after the bandit's final capture.] And at this time the Deputy Sheriff Albert Johnston (not the sheriff, Wm. H. Workman) and his posse were on their trail, less than a mile behind.
The outlaws now rode leisurely on up to where Judge Eaton had fifteen or twenty men at work on the colony ditch and pipe-line, near the Richard- son springs ; and here were A. O. Porter, P. M. Green, Col. J. Banbury, A. O. Bristol, W. T. Clapp and D. M. Berry, besides Judge Eaton and others-all unarmed, so that the robbers could have taken every watch and every dollar in the crowd. The workmen were sitting or lying around tak- ing their nooning or after-dinner rest. Eaton, Porter and Green were just coming down afoot from the sand-box, in their shirt-sleeves, and were thus supposed by the robbers to be workmen like the rest and probably had nothing worth taking. As Vasquez drew near he called out to the work- men and told them who he was; and one of his men who could speak English well introduced him, assuring them that he was "a gentleman ! a
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perfect gentleman !" On Orange Grove Avenue they had found two horses tethered and took one of them, which they were leading. They scarcely stopped but rode slowly along the old road up the Richardson gully, then across the Arroyo at Devil's Gate, and up the old Soledad Trail, securely beyond reach of any pursuing sheriff; but here one of their horses fell from the trail down a precipice and was killed. That same night they rode back through Pasadena down to Sycamore Grove, and compelled the man living there, who had a flock of goats, to dress a kid and get up a good supper for them.
When Eaton, Porter and Green put their coats on to start home, and congratulated themselves on their lucky escape from being robbed, they found that among them all there were three watches and $48 in money which made so close a shave from falling into the robber's hands.
This was the same day that Vasquez had committed what became famous as the Repetto robbery. He was finally captured a few weeks later at an out-of-the-way house in the mountains near Santa Monica, had a trial, and was hung at Los Angeles.
A DREADFUL NIGHT IN EATON CANYON.
Judge Eaton has kindly written out for me the following historic inci- dent :
"The principal accident that occurred in Colonial days happened in this way : Mr. Arthur H. Day, an employe of The Advance, the Congre- gationalist paper of Chicago, conceived the idea of a trip up Eaton Canyon, with two companions as inexperienced as himself .* They started off on foot, packing their grub and blankets on their backs. It was all easy going until they reached "The Falls," distant about three-fourths of a mile from the mouth of the canyon. Here they found a barrier to all fartlier progress up the bed of the stream. Depositing their packs on the banks they com- menced the ascent of the right bank upon their hands and knees. Arriving on top, a height of 250 feet, they thought to descend again into the creek above the falls. This was a difficult and dangerous task for men not used to scaling mountains. But they persevered till poor Day made a mis-step and was precipitated to the bottom, spraining his ankle, and breaking one leg square off. After many times trying, his companions succeeded in reach- ing him. Finding that he was utterly helpless, they began a reconnoisance to see how they were going to get him out. Down the canyon fifty or a hundred yards was the falls-a precipice 40 feet in height over which the water was tumbling into a pool 20 feet in width and 6 or 8 feet deep. Over the falls was the only mode of egress in that direction ; turning about, they followed up the canyon where they were soon brought to a stand still by another precipice about 80 feet in height. Either side was bounded by an almost perpendicular wall several hundred feet high. There was nothing to do but contrive some way of letting Day down over the Falls. Fortu- nately they had along with them some pieces of fence rope. With these and some long slender poles they had cut, a ladder was constructed ; but
*His companions were Enio Brenna, a young Italian then living at W. J. Barcus's, and another young man named Lalya-both dead now.
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when dropped down it did not reach the surface of the pool below by 5 or 6 feet. It was a frail thing for a man with a broken leg to trust himself to ; but Day had "grit." Dropping himself over, he clutched the rounds, while his companions held the ladder above, and thus let himself down as far as the ladder reached, and then dropped into the pool. He swam and paddled until he reached the shore. By this time it had become so dark that the mountaineers were unable to find their way out till morning.
"The provisions and blankets had been left here. Day was able to crawl to them, and there he spent the night alone. Early in the morning one of the boys came down to my house and told of their mishap. I imme- diately dispatched a couple of strong men and a spring wagon to the canyon. Leaving the wagon at the mouth of the canyon, the men proceeded to the falls. There they constructed a rough litter upon which they stretched the unfortunate man and carried him to the wagon, and thence to his home. He must have been suffering a great deal of pain, but not a groan escaped his lips as he was jolted over the boulders and down the rough mountain road. It was six months before he could walk again."
For more about Mr. Day, see Chapter 7.
FIRST SALOON CASE .- March 30, 1885, Jerome Beebe, who had opened the first liquor saloon in Pasadena, was tried in justice's court for making threats of bodily violence against L. H. Michener. District Attor- ney Geo. M. Holton of Los Angeles and H. W. Magee of Pasadena were attorneys for the prosecution ; and Geo. W. Knox of Los Angeles was attorney for Beebe ; and T. P. Lukens was justice of the peace. The result was that Beebe was found guilty, and required to give bonds in the sum of $2,500 for six months to keep the peace. Mr. Knox tried hard to get the bond reduced, claiming that it was exorbitant, etc. ; but justice Lukens was inflexible and the amount had to stand. Knox afterward laughed over it, and said privately, "O, it's all right. I was told by the wholesale liquor men of Los Angeles to tell Beebe not to worry. He could have any amount of bail he required. They'd back him." I heard Knox say it myself.
CANNERY BURNED .- The first fire calamity of importance in the Col- ony was the burning of Joseph Wallace's Cannery on the night of Septem- ber 2, 1885. ('Thomas Banbury's house had burned down a few years be- fore.) The following points showing the disastrous nature of the Cannery fire I quote from the report published in the Valley Union at the time :
" The building was of wood and consisted of a two-story part, 20x50, and a one-story part 16x30. The contents were 10,000 cans of fruit in tins, one and one-half gross cans in glass, 60 cases of last year's pack, three tons of evaporated fruit, and two tons green peaches, besides the evaporator and tools of the cannery. The fruit includes all of this year's pack and part of last. Mr. Wallace roughly estimates the loss on fruit at $5,000 ; insured for $3,000. There is also $1,000 insurance on the building. Work was nearly through for the season, the cannery being engaged on late peaches. As to the cause of the fire none is known, though incendiarism is suspected. The ten thousand cans of tinned fruit made a novel feature
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of the ruins ; and they exploded with the heat with low, dull booms, that were still going on at the time of our visit, twelve hours after the fire."
A NOTABLE ARROYO FIRE.
The Union of October 9, 1885, reported :
" A fire started in the Arroyo Saturday morning. 3rd inst., by the care- lessness of parties living in the Arroyo below Wallace's, and spread thence up the Arroyo, carrying destruction in its wake. It extended up as far as Devil's Gate and above, killing timber and destroying some of the flumes and trestle work of the water companies. It also spread up the mountain side, burning over most of Mr. Yocum's timber land, and miles of the adjacent mountains, including the water-bearing lands of Painter & Ball, and others. The loss amounts to thousands of dollars, and includes, be- sides growing timber, muchı wood already cut, among which are thirty cords belonging to J. W. Wilson, and fifteen cords of Painter & Ball's. The dam- age to growing timber is immense, and the resultant effects upon the water supply is still more serious. J. D. Yocum lost $200 worth of cord-wood by the fire, besides much standing timber ; his total loss estimated over $1,000. It came within ten rods of his dwelling, and had to be fought off his build- ings."
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